Bone cancer

The osteosarcoma genome has long been known to be complex, with few common features between tumours. However, a growing number of somatic genome studies, including a recent study by Behjati et al., have identified common themes in subsets of these cancers. The data suggest that subsets of somatic signatures could be therapeutically tractable targets.

The genetic drivers of osteosarcoma have been difficult to identify because of the genomic complexity consistently encountered in cancer cells at diagnosis. A new study uses Sleeping Beauty transposon mutagenesis to drive osteosarcomagenesis in the mouse and identify likely drivers of the disease in humans.

Comprehensive sequencing of benign and malignant tumors has recently uncovered new driver mutations in childhood tumors. A new report now describes frequent histone H3.3 alterations in chondroblastoma and giant cell tumor of bone, emphasizing the importance of this histone variant in pediatric cancers.